BalkConsort is putting together what it expects will
be a solid management team combining extensive aviation industry
experience with significant experience in finance, accountancy, and
management. An initial project team is in place. As more advanced
planning continues on the airline and investment is in place, the full
core management team will be finalized and its members brought on-board.
More
than in most businesses, management is critically important to an
airline, and especially an airline envisaged as this one is. To
reiterate a point made early in this plan, the right management team is
seen as the first and foremost key to the success of the overall
venture. We endeavor to have such a team.
6.1 Organizational Structure
Reflecting the overall nature of the organization
envisaged, there is very little hierarchy in the organizational plan for
the airline. In an operation where safety and accountability are so
much at issue, obviously someone has to be in charge, and there also
have to be clear lines of authority (and expertise) in the operational
aspects of the airline. But beyond that, the organization is designed
around flexibility, a high level of personal accountability and
responsibility, and common cross-training and sharing of
responsibilities as need arises and circumstances permit.
The levels of organization (reflected in the personnel and salary chart in the Personnel section of this plan) are as follows:
President and chief executive officer (who reports to the Board of Directors of the airline company).
Vice president and general manager.
Functional vice presidents for the core areas of commercial activities, finance, and operations.
Directors
covering sales and marketing, communications, human resources, flight
safety, flight operations, ground operations, maintenance, and
information systems.
Managers in sales and marketing, as well as in station management functions.
Professional, engineering, ground handling, service, and other support personnel.
On
the flight side, which reports to the director of flight operations and
also responds to the director of flight safety, there are only three
levels of personnel:
Captain;
First officer;
Flight attendant.
Salary
scales and levels of authority have been simplified and based on a
rational scale allowing for similar levels, though of different natures,
of functional work to be compensated at the same pay levels. The
overall objective is to foster an atmosphere of cooperation and shared
responsibility to the overall mission, which is to provide the customer
and client with the best possible, safest, and most satisfying
experience with the airline. Cross-training and cross-functioning are
important parts of the organization plan, as explained in more detail
elsewhere in this document.
6.2 Management Team
A complete management team, covering the elements of
administration, aviation, and finance, is being assembled. This team
brings together a wide range of skills and backgrounds covering the key
areas needed to form, launch, and operate the airline, and from a range
of national origins.
6.3 Management Team Gaps
It is premature to speak of management team gaps until a
core management team is named. The individuals who will play leading
roles with the new airline will need to possess the widest possible
range of the requisite skills. The current project team believes
investors in the airline will want to play a key role in helping
formulate core management. Once primary investment is established, that
step can be undertaken, and it is anticipated that the core team will be
finalized quickly.
The new airline will need people with skill,
experience, energy, and vision to head up and serve in such areas as
information management, flight safety, aviation operations, aviation
maintenance, ground operations, sales and marketing, communications, and
human resources management. Also good pilots, co-pilots, cabin crew
members, and ground staff, and administrative staff.
BalkConsort
anticipates putting together the best possible airline management team
in the business, one that also shares the common vision of what this new
airline truly can be and what it can become.
6.4 Personnel Plan
Along with aircraft acquisition and operating costs,
personnel costs represent one of the two largest cost factors faced by
the new airline. Additionally, the airline's personnel will largely
determine the success of the venture. Therefore, it is crucially
important to develop and implement an effective personnel operations and
compensation plan.
The Personnel Plan for the new airline
reflects the stress on the use of technology to reduce staffing and
costs, and the concomitant stress on customer service. Consequently,
staffing is heavier (with individual function directors) in such areas
as information technology and oversight of such functions as human
resources, flight safety, flight maintenance, and ground operations than
might otherwise be the case with a smaller regional airline. On the
other hand, functions such as sales and marketing, bookkeeping and
finance, and personnel management are reduced, with the assumption being
that the effective use of advanced, cost-efficient informational
technologies in these areas will make up for the reduced staffing,
resulting in significant cost savings while providing superior results
at less effort.
It is assumed, based on the experience of other
regional airlines in Europe, that something on the order of 60-70
percent of all reservations and bookings will be made electronically,
and such passengers will be ticketed and checked-in electronically using
special electronic check-in kiosks such as those employed successfully
by the U.S. carrier Continental Airlines, leading to major cost savings
in areas such as sales, reservations, and ground check-in staffing, as
well as in commissions paid out to outside travel agencies.
Staffing in the sales and marketing area is aimed at targeted
customer contact to generate corporate and group business, rather than
individual sales, and to develop special marketing programs designed to
generate significant increases in both passenger and cargo business.
Responsibilities will be divided along both regional and functional
lines, with three regional sales and marketing managers (notionally
responsible for Western Europe North, Western Europe South, and
Southeast Europe & Turkey) and two targeted, global sales and
marketing managers (one responsible for special sales aimed specifically
at the peak traffic/special flights/holiday travel/charters market, the
other for air cargo sales), reporting to one director of sales and
marketing. Additional personnel will answer customer inquiries and take
reservations on the telephone at central headquarters, with phone calls
forwarded to them from throughout the airline market area, and also will
respond to e-mail/website-forwarded inquiries.
All key functional
positions throughout the airline, including in the sales and marketing
area, are backed up by professional support personnel, most of whom will
be cross-trained in different areas, so there will always be coverage
of all key functional areas as well as back-up support when work demand
requires it.
In the ground-service area, the airline will utilize
its own personnel to the extent practical in order to assure a more
consistently positive experience for the passenger. All major
destinations will be staffed by airline personnel, while at some smaller
and more remote destinations, or where local practice or requirement
dictates it, ground handling and service may be contracted out to local
service providers.
Even in such cases, efforts will be made to utilize spare flight crew
personnel to assist with oversight of ground services and respond to
customer needs, again stressing the airline's focus on cross-training.
Finally, as revenues and passenger demand increases, the Personnel Plan
can be expanded to provide additional ground service personnel at key
locations and to expand the number of locations where the airline
provides its own ground-service staffing.
Again through the use of
e-ticketing, e-check-in, and e-baggage tracking, ground-service
staffing requirement will be very light compared with a more traditional
organization. Particularly given the fairly light flight scheduling at
most locations and the convenient size of the projected aircraft,
check-ins should be quick and easy, with little waiting in line or
fighting with crowds - major marketing advantages as well.
Given
the airline's motto, "We have a job to do, and we do it every day - for
you!", cross-training and cross-functioning will be core elements of the
new airline's personnel-management approach. Everyone will be
inculcated with the spirit that she or he is personally responsible for
the passenger and the client having a positive experience when in
contact with the new airline. Everyone, from the president on down, will
be familiar with (and participate in) virtually every aspect of the
work and customer-service process (a method employed successfully by the
former PEOPLExpress and other "people-oriented" carriers and other
successful service businesses). While no one will expect (nor want) a
receptionist to fly the airplane, nor a sales manager to perform engine
repairs, nor for that matter a pilot or flight attendant to tend to the
bookkeeping, common customer-service functions like check-in, gate
monitoring, baggage handling, and answering customer inquiries can and
should be performed from time to time by any and all available
personnel. This process also requires, however, that personnel receive
actual training and experience in these various areas, so they do not
become more of a hindrance than a help.
Even the airline's uniforms will project an image of ordinary people
doing extraordinary work to please and make the passenger feel
comfortable. There will be a stress on informality, utilizing
"non-uniform" uniforms to again stress the airline's work ethic and
customer-service orientation, making both employee and client feel more
at home. This approach also is in keeping with today's trend toward
greater informality and equality in the work place, and away from the
stilted authoritarian way of the past.
Finally, the proposed
hierarchy and salary structure is designed to be both economical as well
as sufficiently attractive and competitive to enable the airline to
recruit good, qualified personnel. At the same time, in keeping with the
overall ambience of the airline, it also stresses relative equality and
fairness in its structure. A good benefits package, consistent with,
and perhaps better than, available elsewhere in the industry or related
industries, and the more abstract benefits of being part of a
well-respected, well-functioning, professional, winning team, also will
be elements attracting good employees to the new airline and keeping
them on the team.
There are only about 10 pay grades provided for
in the salary plan for the entire airline, including executive-level
salaries, with jobs that may be markedly different in terms of function,
but similar in terms of experience required, difficulty, and
importance, sharing the same pay grade.
Most subordinate grades
within given functions are based on a set percentage of higher-level
salaries within the same general function. In addition, the plan for pay
increases is straightforward and fosters clarity and understanding,
rather than anxiety and unhealthy competition, among employees.
Everyone, across the board, from top to bottom in the organization,
who performs satisfactorily will receive a 10 percent pay increase at
the end of the first year of service (deemed to be the most difficult),
and a 5 percent pay increase at the end of each subsequent year of
service (with adjustments made only on the basis of specific
across-the-board or localized issues like inflation, currency
devaluations, and so forth).
Unsatisfactory performance merits
only one of two remedies: Dismissal, or placement on a limited
probationary regime to determine if problems can be remedied and the
employee brought up to standard within a given time limit. Otherwise,
there is no room, and no cause, for protracted anxiety on the part of
the satisfactory employee concerning such issues as pay raises and
related issues. The only other issue is the possibility of promotion to a
higher position within the organization, and the airline will endeavor
to promote its best from within whenever possible.
One other issue
worth considering, though it is not included in the current plan, is
the possibility of offering a bonus to all employees, as a specific
percentage of their pay, when the airline shows a particularly
profitable year to encourage additional "pride of ownership" and esprit
de corps.
A summary Personnel Plan for the first three years of
operations follows in the table below, and a detailed monthly plan for
the initial year is provided in the appendix.
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